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INTRODUCTION: THE BURGER KING CASE

“At the Law Firm Business Development Forum, Anne Chwat, General Counsel of Burger King, told the story of being surprised with a class action suit for violating an anti-trust rule she didn’t know existed.What did she do? She did a search for it. One name came up with the right content right on topic, and that ultimately led to an engagement.”  Adrian Dayton reporting on the 2010 Law Firm Business Development Forum

If the General Counsel of Burger King (market cap: almost 2 billion euros) is shopping for lawyers online, it tells us that the use of internet has changed irrevocably.

General counsel now use Google (or other search engines) to scan the market for professional services. When they find different providers, they will choose the one that offers the best insights into their problem. In short: the best expert that his or her money can buy. It is up to the provider to prove that he is the best in his field, and to do that, he has to offer what Dayton calls a “free sample”: knowledge, insight and analysis.

In this new era of Google search, a law firm website can no longer be the glorified business card that it once was. Instead of an online presence, law firms need to develop a strategic online marketing programme, that helps firms connect to prospects, convince them, and ultimately convert those prospects to paying customers.

ONLINE MARKETING VS. ONLINE PRESENCE

Until a few years ago, most professional services website had about 5 navigational tabs with titles like “ABOUT US”, “SERVICES”, “TEAM”, “CONTACT”. Sites of this type were typically small (10 to 50 pages). Updates were mostly concerned with making the look and feel of the site more contemporary.

Since the copy on these websites remains unchanged for long periods, they rank very low in search engines like Google and Bing, since search engines effectively punish what they deem ‘lazy’ sites, preferring news sites with lots of fresh content over small sites with old copy.

Also, since there is no interesting content on the site, no other websites link to these ‘business card’ websites, resulting in even more punishment from search engines who rank sites based on the number of links to a site.

Websites like these accomplish only what we call ‘online presence’. They are mostly useful for people who already know the firm and are looking for the address of the phone number. They are nothing more than an electronic business card.

Most professional services marketing experts however, agree that online presence is no longer enough for lawyers and consultants. It is necessary to develop real, strategic online marketing. A law firm website could (and probably should) be the focal point of all marketing activities of professional services providers.

Why?

1. Because all prospects will visit a firm’s website at some point to get a feel for how you rank as a professional services provider.
2. Because the cost of putting content online is virtually zero. Since the price of online storage and bandwith is so low, you can put entire books online at zero cost.
3. Because the cost of keeping content online is virtually zero. A good, insightful article or whitepaper on your core competence can attract prospects for years to come through what is called “organic search”: prospects who type in keywords, looking for insight on how to deal with a problem. See also: the Burger King case.
4. Because most people spend most of their business day glued to a computer screen anyway. Any website is only a click or a few keystrokes away.
5. Because relying on the quality of your service to retain existing clients is not wise. Studies (Eversheds, Schultz) show that almost half of professional services clients are inclined to change professional services providers. Offering your client useful insights and content is a good way to keep clients.

How should this online marketing work? In essence, it should be the online equivalent of the inhouse seminars that most law firms organise. A seminar is a place where a firm gives away knowledge and insights about problems that prospects are faced with. In turn, the prospect implicitly agrees to be talked up by the firms partners or senior associates as a potential client.

Websites should do exactly the same: they should be a place where a firm shows off its expertise on topics that it excells in. The goal of a website can be summarized in three “C’s”:

1. CONNECT
2. CONVINCE
3. CONVERT

METHODOLOGY: FINN PR reviewed 50 websites of Belgian law firms.

The firms were selected via LinkedIn. This gives a certain bias in the result: firms that are present on LinkedIn are more likely to be active in business law than in personal or criminal law. They are mostly B2B-firms, more likely to be midsized or large (10-200 employees). Firms that are on LinkedIn are also more likely to have a web presence.

Both these biases were intentional because of two reasons:

1. FINN works mostly for professional services providers in the B2B market, which for law practitioners means business law
2. we wanted to avoid listing large numbers of websites of small law offices with only 1 or 2 lawyers. We were looking for law offices that are growth oriented, and therefore would benefit from a strong online presence.

Essentially, these 50 firms are supposedly “best in class” because they have more marketing budget than smaller firms.

The websites were graded on 19 variables that can be grouped into the three ‘C’s:

• CONNECT: how well does the site perform on variables that increase the chance of being found
• CONVINCE: how well does the site perform on variables that increase the chance of convincing readers of the expertise of the law office
• CONVERT: how well does the site convert readers into prospects, by trying to get them to subscribe to newsletters, RSS or Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts?
• On top of that, each website received a score from 1-100 based on a proprietary weighing of the 19 variables.

To get an accurate feel of how well Belgian law firms are doing online marketing, we also decided to list the number of sites that still use the “business card” website. Firms that still use business card websites can be said to do no online marketing at all, because of the many chances they miss to connect to online search and convince new visitors.

HOW LAW SITES SCORE IN MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS

1. OVERALL SCORE

The average overall score of Belgian law websites is a disappointing 46/100, with a median of 41. Only 18 % of websites score higher than 70/100. Only 12 % can be said to be doing everything right in terms of connecting, convincing and converting online traffic (score 80/100 or higher).

About a third of Belgian law websites (34 %) still uses the “business card” model for its website, and can therefore be said to have no significant online marketing strategy or web presence at all.

Two firms have no website at all (4 %), although they do have a LinkedIn presence.

2. “CONNECT”: how well do sites perform on search engines?

Variables used:

• presence of metadata on website
• presence of headings
• Presence of sitemap
• number of indexed Google pages
• number of inbound links

While each of these variables in itself says little about a site’s search engine performance, together they give an accurate image of the care that was taken to make sure that websites would be easily found through online search.

While Google, Bing, and Yahoo remain vague as to how exactly they ranks websites, there are a few things that are certain to improve a sites search ranking.

Search engines punish sites that load slowly, for example. Websites should be built to be fast. Also, Google likes to know exactly what a site is about. The firm’s webmaster should use the correct meta tags, headers, alt image tags, etcetera.

On a less technical level, Google also seems to prefer large sites over small sites. Large sites are more likely to attract inbound links, which is hugely important to Google in ranking sites. It is in your best interest to have a lot of content online. Preferably, content that other people link to. The best way to do this, is to just post interesting content online: news, knowledge, opinions.

INBOUND LINKS

Inbound links are one of the most important measures of how well a site will do in terms of online markting. If an authorative, high traffic site lists your firms website, you will profit from its traffic too through the referrals. Additionally, search engines will rank you higher when a website links to you.

The average number of inbound links to Belgian law websites is 266. This number seems reassuringly high, but it is significantly warped because of a handful of websites with an extemely high number of inbound links (Loyens & Loeff: 4140 inbound links, Holman Fenwick Willan and NautaDutilh: 1600+ inbound links). The median of inbound links is only 43! It is interesting to notice that Holman Fenwick Willan and NautaDutilh are foreign firms.

NUMBER OF INDEXED PAGES

The average number of indexed pages of Belgian law sites is 258, but again this number is warped by the same websites (Loyens & Loeff, Holman Fenwick Willan and NautaDutilh) with an unusually high number of indexed pages.

The median number of pages is 60. A 60 page site will not have much room for original content like blogs or whitepapers, especially since a lot of the websites are in two or three languages. This drives the number of ‘original’ pages down to as low as 20.

A whopping 20 % of Belgian law websites have zero (0) indexed pages on Google, which means that they are not easily accessible and searchable by Google. This is an indication that a lot of law firms have their sites built by developers who are not following best practices in SEO.

SITEMAP, METADATA, HEADINGS

To make websites easily searchable for search engine robots, a few technical requirements exist. Most search engines prefer sites with a sitemap to assist them in indexing web pages. Adding a sitemap is technically trivial, and yet 44 % of Belgian law sites do not have a sitemap.

Metadata and headings are another measure of how well a site helps search engines to rank and classify sites. Metadata is essentially a short abstract of what a page is about. The abstract is not visible to users of the site, but it is read by search engines, who use it when presenting search results. For instance, on a page that lists the awards and listings of a law firm, a meta description could read: “Firm X is recommended by Legal500, Chambers and won the 2010 Legal Award for Best Tax Firm”.

This meta description will be listed in search engine search results. The same goes for headings, which help search engines understand what website pages are about. Again, both metadata and headings are a technically trivial way to boost search ranking. A heading, for instance, is simply a matter of thinking to add a title to a website and tagging it with the html tag “h1”.

Belgian law sites score extremely poor on these metrics. Only 38 % show metadata, while only 46 % use headings. Again, this is an indication that law firms have their websites developed by substandard vendors.

3. “CONVINCE”

Variables:

• blog
• news
• newsletter
• newsletter frequency
• research/whitepapers
• client testimonials
• references/case studies
• proprietary video channel
• YouTube presence

The distinction between ‘blog’ and news seems small but in reality is not. We consider a blog to be a medium that deliberately raises expert status through the dissemination of relevant information (industry news, opinion, analysis). The information in a blog is meant to offer immediate value to prospects and existing customers.

A ‘news’ section however is concerned mostly with the firm as a firm: new partners and associates, or events like “Partner X meets US ambassador”. ‘News’ of this kind offers no immediate value to the reader. It is also a lot less likely to attract inbound links, which is very important for a firm to be found online.

Research and whitepapers are yet another class. These are in-depth, original studies undertaken by the firm and will almost always offer unique value. Blogs tend to be more bite sized and less unique to a firm: the content of one blog could often be swapped with the contents of a competitor’s blog without anyone necessarily noticing. A whitepaper is one of the best ways to attract both inbound links and high quality pre-qualified leads, i.e. leads that are seriously shopping for an expert in the matter that the whitepaper is about.

When a prospect lands on your website, it is important to convince him or her that you are an expert in your chosen profession. This is a second reason that a firm should invest in putting knowlegde online. A prospect wants to hear from a firm what it knows and what it thinks about problems that trouble him or her: firms understand this. It is why they organise offline seminars. There is no reason not to offer the same knowledge online.

B2B-marketing is all about positioning yourself as an expert. An expert knows things, an expert analyses trends, and an expert has opinions about what he knows and analyses. These are the things that a firm’s online marketing should focus on to make sure that prospects want to enter into a business relationship with the firm.

The easiest way to convince visitors of a firm’s expertise is by observing the rule “show, don’t tell”.

Telling prospects that you excell in a certain specialty is not nearly as convincing as amassing whitepapers, original research, news and opinions on that same specialty. Offline, most law firms understand this: most (business law) firms invest in seminars on specialty topics.

Continuing this work online seems to be a problem for most firms, although it is a lot cheaper than offline marketing seminars: for practically zero cost, it is possible to build a huge website full of written and video content.

BLOGS, NEWS, NEWSLETTERS, WHITEPAPER & RESEARCH, VIDEO and YouTube

First, there seems to exist an allergy – also observed in the author’s own experience of working with lawyers – to the the practice of blogging in Belgian law firms, and maybe even to the very word “blog”. To many lawyers, the word blogging seems to conjure up images of sixteen year olds sharing their teenage angst with the world, or elderly people ruminating on their gardening activities.

Only 14 % of Belgian law firms blog; only 1 or 2 actually call their blog a ‘blog’. Most prefer to present their blog under the title ‘info’, or even ‘news’.

NOTE: in this paper, corporate blogging means that you share insights, knowledge, news, analysis and expertise via an online publishing tool. As we said earlier, we make a distinction between ‘news’ that is firm-centered and ‘blogging’ activities that offer value to existing or prospective clients (helping them understand legal problems that they face, emerging trends in their industry etc.).

60 % of Belgian law firms offers firm ‘news’, annoucnements of new partners, new publications, seminars, etc. Unfortunately, the news section is often not updated frequently. Also, like we said, the ‘news’ is not terribly interesting to clients, because it adds no value. ‘News’ will not forge, nor cement a relationship with an existing client or a prospect.

Newsletters are an important tool to reach both existing clients (often forgotten in firm’s marketing mix) and prospective clients. It’s not an exaggeration to say that every professional services firm should offer newsletters to its clients.

Yet only 46 % of law firms show evidence of newsletters on its website. This number might appear lower than it actually is. Some firms mention newsletters, but don’t give access to them or don’t offer possibilities to subscribe to them.

It’s possible that some law firms prefer to send newsletters only to their clients, and not offer them on the site out of some kind of protectionist reflex – “it’s our knowledge and we’re not giving it away”. In the author’s opinion, this is a mistake: there is so much information available on the internet, that prospects will find the info elsewhere if not on your site. If they find valuable information at another firm’s site, chances are great that they will take their business there instead of to you.

Just over one third (34 %) of Belgian law sites offer deep analysis on important legal problems in the form of whitepapers of research. Only 12 % offers references or case studies to show how the firm operates and thinks. Only 1 firm features client testimonials on its website (Laga).

Video blogging is a very marginal phenomenon. A few firms (6 %) have tried their hand at video seminars, where a lawyer offers insight and analysis on screen. We counted 1 firm with its own YouTube channel (NautaDutilh – again it is noteworthy that they are in origin an Amsterdam based firm).

The conclusion should be that Belgian law firms are not doing a terribly good job of convincing prospects of their expertise. They seem to rely heavily on offline reputation, and on so called ‘selling copy’ (‘We are a unique firm with a prestigious history’). Unfortunately, selling copy is a lot less convincing than insights, knowledge and analysis.

4. “CONVERT”

• conversion form present?
• conversion form on every page?
• RSS feed?
• Twitter account?
• Facebook page?

(NOTE: LinkedIn presence is a given, due to selection process.)

These represent the stickiness of the online presence. Every website visitor who does not leave behind his or her contact information is a lost opportunity to market. Conversion should be the end goal of all online marketing, and all online marketing should be aimed at convincing people to follow the firm – either by newsletter, RSS feed, Twitter or Facebook/LinkedIn account.

We distinguish between firms who have a conversion form (usually “subscribe to our newsletter”) and firms who have a conversion form on every page, because it shows whether firms added a newsletter subscribe form as an afterthought, or whether conversion was a strategic goal of the website.

Jay Conrad Levinson (‘Guerilla Marketing’) says that a good marketeer knows that marketing is not about pushing your business card into the hands of as many prospects as possible (they will put it in the drawer and forget about it). The idea is to receive as many business cards as possible, and keep in touch with prospects.

Every prospect who visits a website, shows an interest in the information offered and is then allowed to leave without leaving behind an e-mail address or a name, is a lost marketing opportunity and possibly a lost client.

Websites should try to convince readers to opt in to receive more marketing from the firm. New technologies offer a wealth of possibilities to allow firms to stay in touch with prospects: newsletter subscription forms, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, RSS feeds that send content immediately to an aggregate reader.

This is called ‘list building’, and it is the holy grail of all online marketing activities.

Again, Belgian law firms seem to be unaware of the importance of list building. Almost 70 % of the firms that offer newsletters do have some kind of conversion form, somewhere on the site. But it often takes quite a while to find it. Only 8 % of the firms that offer newsletters (2 sites) actually offer a subscription form on every single page.

Conversion is not something readers are actively looking for. It’s important to remind readers that you will be offering more interesting content in the future, and that it would be a shame to miss out on that information. Adding a subscription form at the end of every blog article or newsletter archieve could dramatically increase conversion.

Other, newer ways of connecting to prospects, such as Twitter and Facebook, remain marginal. Only 4 of the researched firms have a Twitter account that is connected to their website. Again, two foreign firms warp this score: NautaDutilh and Holman Fenwick Willan have Twitter accounts. The other two are Elegis and Publius (Tim Vermeir).

CONCLUSIONS

It’s clear from this research that Belgian law firms are not very aware about the possibilities of online marketing. Firm websites are obviously considered a necessity, but they are not strategically embedded. Because of this lack of understanding of what online marketing can and should be, firms miss a lot of opportunities to undertake some very effective and cheap marketing.

Judging from the look and structure of most sites, a lot of lawyers actually look at each other’s sites for inspiration. A lot of law websites look remarkably the same, with the same navigational tabs and even the same kind of art work.

Guessing from the look, content and structure, it looks like lawyers have their websites designed by designers or web developers, not marketeers or PR people. They seem very concerned with the right look and feel, not so much with content or online marketing possibilities.

SOME OBSERVATIONS & REMARKABLE MARKETING INITIATIVES

5 avoidable mistakes that Belgian law websites make:

1. “Interesting links”

Some aspects of law websites are decidedly out of date, like the “interesting links” that a lot of lawyers still offer, usually a collection of links to the Belgian Staatsblad, or to the United Nations.

The links are not embedded or qualified: they are just a passive collection of so called ‘interesting’ links. The chances that anyone visiting a law firm website is looking for a link to the United Nations is practically nihil. These links clutters the site without adding any value.

2. “Publications”

Many firms put a list of publications by the firm’s lawyers on their website. Unfortunately, this list is just that: a list. The content of the publication is not available to the visitor, there are no links to the actual content of the publication. This is the online equivalent of sending someone a direct mailing with a 3 page paper bibliography: it’s just dead weight that nobody will actually read.

3. PDF instead of HTML

If firms offer the actual content of the publication (like newsletters or whitepapers), it often requires downloading a PDF document. This makes it harder for external sites to link to your content, and harder for search engines to access and index your content. This is a shame, because these PDF’s often offer the best and most original content that the law firm offers. It is advisable to offer the content in HTML pages, and add a possibility to download it as a PDF.

4. Small fonts

Somehow, Belgian law sites seem to favor small fonts, like they are intentionally trying to discourage people to read their websites. Research shows that people like online fonts to be large and easily readable. This problem could be caused by the fact that lawyers want their site to look serious and stern, or because they are having the sites conceived by designers, who emphasise image over content.

5. No news updates

If you have a news section, please use it. Likewise: if you let people subscribe for newsletters, do send newsletters. One newsletter every three months is the absolute minimum, one every two months or even every month is even better.

As the e-mail marketing saying goes: ‘Permission doesn’t age well’. If you have people subscribe to a list and you e-mail them two years later out of the blue, there’s a good chance they will mark you mailing as spam – which can hurt your business badly.

REMARKABLE BELGIAN LAW MARKETING INITIATIVES

Van Bael & Bellis, www.vanbaelbellis.com

Van Bael & Bellis are producers of a DVD (in collaboration with Michelin): ‘Complying with EU competition law’. The film won the International Prize for “Training & Education”, June 2005 at the Film Festival du Creusot.

From the website: “This DVD presents four scenarios which illustrate situations which are the most likely to constitute very serious infringements of European competition law. The scenarios are preceded by a video-clip describing a dawn raid by European Commission’s competition officials at the business premises of a company suspected of infringing European competition rules.” For sale at 250 € + VAT on the firm’s website.

Claeys & Engels, www.claeysengels.be

Positioning itself as an opinion leader in the domain of labor law, Claeys & Engels offer an online calculator to calculate the so called “formula Claeys”. Unfortunately for the firm, it chose to host the calculator on a different domain (www.formuleclaeys.be) instead of the firm’s main domain (www.claeysengels.be ). The online marketing value of the firm’s website would increase greatly by moving the calculator from its dedicated domain to the main Claeys & Engels domain.

Celes, www.celes.be

Celes is the only one of the studied law firms that offer service bundles, the LexPack (in three scales: LexPack 10, 20 or 30). It is cleverly presented as a form of insurance or maintenance against enterprise risk.

Wijffels, Geuens, De Paep, www.wijffels.com

Wijffels, Geuens, De Paep are remarkable for two reasons: the green color of the firm website (it’s reminiscent of ‘The Hulk’), and more importantly their subscription magazine “Europees vervoerrecht” (159 €/year).

The firm essentially becomes a publisher instead of a professional services provider. One cannot but wonder if the firm wouldn’t generate more billable business by offering the content of the magazine for free on the firm’s website.

Philippe & Partners, www.philippelaw.com

Philippe & Partners are quite innovative when it comes to their online presence. It has an online shop (“e-store”) with standard contracts, waivers, etcetera at very attractive prices (39,90 € for a confidentiality agreement, an agency contract, etc.). It also offers syllabi at 25 €. Like Wijffels Gueens De Paep, the firm adds a new business model to its existing business model, and one wonders if the benefits to the firm wouldn’t be greater in terms of legal fees if it offered the syllabi for free. Philippe & Partners also hosts a legal forum that shows little activity.

ABOUT FINN Public Relations

FINN is a full service public relations firm with strong track record in marketing and PR for lawyers and consultants. FINN has always regarded online presence as a necessary extension of offline PR and marketing efforts. Over the years, we have helped numerous clients in moving from an online presence towards a real and results oriented online marketing program.

This does not necessarily mean that we advise our clients to get a new website. We are not mainly concerned with how a website or an online presence looks, but rather with the question: how does it work? Does it generate leads in a reliable way? Does it raise brand awareness? Does it drive sales?

It is our conviction that professional services and law marketing in the next decade will have to evolve from a “selling copy” model towards a model where firms share knowledge and insight with their clients online as well as offline.

FINN has a proven track record in elevating brand awareness and expert status of our clients through a multichannel approach that includes

• offline PR (national and international press, trade publications and legal guides),
• corporate communication
• online marketing strategies and tactics (social media, blogging, websites).
• training (media, social media, web writing,…)
• change and project management for marketing programmes 

For case files and references, visit: http://www.finn.be/klanten-cases

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If you liked this blog post, maybe you're interested in our monthly newsletter. About once every 4 to 6 weeks, FINN sends a newsletter with free PR and marketing advice to our contacts. Of course, we will never give away, rent or sell your e-mail address to third parties. All our e-mail communication includes an unsubscribe link.

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List of websites reviewed for this whitepaper:

www.tiberghien.com

www.cazimir.be

www.dsvlaw.be

www.lydian.be

www.cms-db.com

www.vanbaelbellis.com

www.dalveldekens.com

www.eubelius.com

www.mvvp.be

www.vancutsem.be

www.philippelaw.com

www.koan.be

www.monard-dhulst.be

www.praxislaw.eu

www.artscleeren.be

www.van-huffelen.be

www.ldr.be

www.astrealaw.be

www.dvp-law.com

www.lorenz-law.com

www.greenille.eu

www.rabotlaw.be

www.nbgolex.com

www.lcs-brussels.eu

www.simontbraun.eu

www.wijffels.com

www.lafili-law.be

www.xirius.be

www.dhdc.be

www.cew-law.be

www.bbrv-avocats-liege.be

www.laurius.be

www.eversheds.be

www.gdena-advocaten.be

www.celes.be

www.marlex.be

www.publius.be

www.hensadvocaten.be

www.zians-haas.be

www.b-right.be

www.hfw.com

www.nautadutilh.com

www.elegis.be

www.verwal.net

www.claeysengels.be

www.stibbe.be

www.laga.be

www.verbist-law.be

www.loyensloeff.com

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